Japan's Cabinet Office is taking public comment through August 26, 2026, on a package of six draft economic-security documents, a revision to the government's basic policy plus five accompanying guidelines, including a revision to the rulebook that screens equipment and outsourced maintenance contracts used by the country's critical-infrastructure operators. The rules target what Tokyo calls "specified obstruction acts": attempts, originating from outside Japan, to disrupt essential services such as electricity, gas, water, telecommunications and finance by tampering with the hardware, software or maintenance work that keeps them running.
The underlying guideline was first adopted by cabinet decision in April 2023. The draft now open for comment would revise its threat-framing section to cite Japan's Cybersecurity Strategy, adopted in December 2025, which found that attack traffic monitored by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has been rising and that organized, state-suspected attacks against Japan are becoming more visible. The revision is one piece of a wider update flowing from a June 2026 amendment to Japan's 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act, which also revised the country's critical-materials and critical-technology support systems and created a new scheme, financed through the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, to back economically important projects overseas.
The screening mechanism is a notify-and-wait system. An operator designated as a "specified critical infrastructure operator" must file an "introduction plan" before installing designated equipment or handing its maintenance or operation to an outside contractor, and it cannot proceed for 30 days after the responsible ministry receives that filing. The wait can be shortened for routine, previously vetted cases, or extended if the review needs more time. Plans must identify the equipment supplier or maintenance contractor by name, address, country of incorporation, the nationality of holders of a set share of voting rights, officers' nationality, and the share of the supplier's business done with foreign governments, among other details left to ministerial ordinance.
| Factor | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Supplier's foreign ties | Whether the equipment or maintenance supplier is under strong influence from an entity seeking to disrupt Japan's infrastructure from outside the country |
| Operator's own risk controls | Whether the infrastructure operator has assessed the risk itself and adopted mitigation measures accordingly |
| Track record | Past cases where the supplier's products showed flagged vulnerabilities, improper maintenance, or non-compliance with Japanese or international standards |
| Sanctions exposure | Extra scrutiny for suppliers that are themselves subject to Japan's economic sanctions or under the strong influence of a sanctioned entity |
If the reviewing minister judges the equipment could be used as a channel for foreign disruption, the ministry can recommend changes, such as swapping a supplier or adding safeguards, or recommend halting the purchase or contract outright. The operator has ten days to say whether it will comply, and if it refuses without an accepted reason, the minister can issue a binding order. A companion guideline in the same package describes the services this regime is meant to protect as spanning "energy supply, transport, communications, medical care and finance," though the specific sectors and equipment categories actually captured are set separately by cabinet and ministerial order rather than in this document.
The month-long comment window, open through August 26, 2026, gives infrastructure operators, equipment vendors and industry groups a chance to weigh in before this guideline and the five others released alongside it are finalized. The specific sectors and equipment categories subject to the pre-filing requirement remain fixed by separate cabinet order and ministerial ordinance, not by this guideline itself.